The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-02-23


toes? AnSWer-In the series of ex
periments carried on few years age
under the direction of the coll eye
potash and phosphoric acid showed the
greatest effect on those crops, and il
no instance did nitrogen prove the
dominant or ruling thing, while potash
showed the ruling part in the greatest
number of cases, and phosphoric acid
good effects in many instances, more
especially on corn.
"Two VALUES OF FEEDS"
The above was the title of Mr.. Lanes
paper. He began by saying that Ad-
olson county sells from six thousand to
ten thousand tons of hay annually. In
selling this the elements of plant-growth
are sold away from the farm and lost.
If instead of this it were fed on the
farm there would be value left after
the food was taken and from eighty-fve
to ninety per cent of the nominal value
would be left in the manure for plant
food. Many farmers reason wrongly
thus: If | sell my stock in the fall and
sell my hay / shall get more money than
| can realize in any other way" There
are two objects in agriculture-to pro-
duce plants and animals and the lands
which will produce without manuring
are so small as to be hardly worth con-
sidering. Every crop removes plant
elements, and if the plants grown were
left on the land it would constantly in
crease in fertility. In feeding and fat
tening young stock but fifteen per cent
of the plant elements are lost; if fed
to mature stock, only eight TO ten per
cent; if to dairy cows, twenty per cent,
if the milk is sold, but if butter is made
and the skim milk fed on the farm
very little is lost. The manurial values
per ton before feeding are as follows
for various stuffs named: Corn-fodder,
SIPS; green clover, 1898; clover hay,
SS.SS; meadow hay, SS.37; timothy
hay, 1914; oat straw, $50; wheat
straw, S3.71; sugar beet, S1.15; pota-
toes, S1.74; wheat, $500; corn-cobs,
1922; wheat middlings, S9.11; wheat
bran, S13.03; pea meal, S16.3S; linseed
meal, sd 90; cotton-seed meal, S2S.04.
OF these values about eighty-fve per
cent is left in the manure after the food
value has been taken up by the animal.
The tables show a ton of bran to be
worth 1913. 43 in both its values. The
farmer who in the fall looks to see if
his hay and grain are worth more to
sell than if fed to sheep, cattle or
horses, should take these manurial
values into consideration. If these
products will net the farmer two-thirds in
feeding of what the market price to sell
is, it will be best for him to feed them
If the farmer sells five thousand pounds
of milk he sells Sc % worth of manurial
value; if butter is made from it and
that sold, not more than ten or fifteen
cents worth is sold. The manurial
value of the hay and grain fed to pro-
duce that milk is about S26.30, and if
from eighty-tve to ninety per cent of
fertilizer were returned it would seem
that feeding must be profitable. The
ordinary COW weighs about eight hun
dred pounds and will void about seven
tons of manure, of which four tons will
be liquid, and where this is not saved
you can see how great the waste must
be. The liquid in Il ton of sheep
manure is worth twice as much as the
solid. Can the farmer feed his prod
ucts and get their market price I? He
thought it was being done in several
directions. One dairyman in Addison
county keeps twenty-five cows at cost,
as he estimates, of two and one-half
tons of hay at $50 and corn-stalks at
S3; he feeds meal eight months in the
year-two quarts of corn and the same
of cotton-seed-costing Sl5.45; pasture,
So. Total, SAB. As. These cows Welded
three hundred twenty-five pounds of
butter per COW, which, if sold at sixteen
cents per pound, would pay the cost.
III "a sold tho ,rp1nnt f,,r &C I
had left the manurial value of the feed
which would be worth about 500 per COW.
Another farmer in Windsor county got
a yield of three hundred pounds of but
ter per COW, at cost of keeping of
$43.70, and had left the value of S25 in
manure. He thought calves could be
raised at profit. Mr.. Smith is doing
it, and others can. He hardly thought
beef could be raised here at profit,
except in young, early-maturing ami
mails. He instanced a mans selling
calves which had been kept up a
year for S35 to $40 each. He knew
one man who fed siXty-four steers
twenty of them three years old and
past and weighing thirteen hundred !
forty pounds each, and cost three and
one-half cents per pound The first of
April they will weigh fifteen hundred
pounds and sell at four and one-half |
cents. These steers cost $1,000 and
sell for $3.50. They will eat SO |
worth of hay and an equal amount of
oats, which would leave 81 per head
profit on the steers and all the manurial
value of the feed in addition. He had
had some experience in feeding lambs. |
One hundred lambs, weighing siXty-fve |
pounds each, at four aud ne-half cents
a pound, cost S292.50. Fed till April |
list nine tons of hay, five tons of |
grain (being fifty-siX pounds of corn,
forty-slX pounds of oats and twenty |
eight pounds of bran per day., at a cost
of $50, the total cost would be S44S 30. |
They should gain at least fifteen pounds |
each and sell at six and one-half cents,
bringing 1925. The manurial value in
this feed would be $l26.64, if all was
saved, and there is no stock kept from
which manure can be so completely |
saved as from sheep; and it is worth |
more than any commercial fertilizer
which can be bought for the same |
money. He thinks farmers can feed
for wool and mutton with profit if the
lambs are taken into consideration. |
One man he knew of for some years
bought five tons of commercial fertil- |